With the development of location based service (Location Based Service, LBS) technologies, intelligent terminals become carriers that implement and run LBSs. By using an intelligent terminal, a user can use an LBS in real time, and acquire a geographical location of the user, that is, implement a positioning function. Environments of geographical locations of users can be classified into open geographical location environments (which are also referred to as open space) and closed geographical location environments (which are also referred to as closed space). Therefore, positioning functions provided by LBS services are classified into open positioning and closed positioning (which is also referred to as indoor positioning).
The so-called open positioning is a positioning manner for a geographical location that is directly visible in all domains, which, for example, can be directly positioned within coverage of a Global Positioning System (Global Positioning System, GPS). The so-called closed positioning is a positioning manner for closed space that cannot be covered by the GPS, for example, a geographical location which is inside a room or whose details are not visible in all domains. It can be known based on the existing implementation and technical methods that implementation manners of open positioning and closed positioning are different.
In the aspect of open positioning, service providers provide open positioning services by using map data and map programs (or applications). These map programs perform positioning by directly using a satellite such as a GPS satellite, or perform cellular positioning by indirectly using a satellite, and can provide users with a uniform location display interface by using a uniform positioning capability. At present, technologies of positioning services provided based on these methods become increasingly mature.
In the aspect of closed positioning, it is a different case. Closed positioning has closeness of positioning, and the closeness of positioning mainly refers to non-openness and complexity of the inside of a building. Location information of a piece of closed space not only includes differences between building floors, but also includes diverse environments and variable details, and may even include a difference in and dependence on hardware with a positioning capability. Moreover, because a map of closed space has finer textures and shows richer details, it may result in a larger amount of map data. All of these lead to complexity of performing closed positioning for closed space. Therefore, it is difficult to provide a uniform closed space positioning service, and it is also difficult to integrate closed space positioning with open space positioning.
At present, an open positioning technology is basically mature, but a closed space positioning technology is still in constant development. A conventional closed space positioning method requires that a user artificially identifies closed space in which the user is located and the user manually selects, according to the identified closed space, a closed positioning program corresponding to the closed space to perform closed positioning. If the closed positioning program corresponding to the closed space is not installed in a mobile terminal of the user, the user needs to artificially search for, download, and install the closed positioning program corresponding to the closed space. The conventional closed space positioning method requires that a user artificially identifies closed space in which the user is located and artificially selects and runs a corresponding closed positioning program, which leads to relatively complex positioning and poor user experience. Moreover, because the method relies on subjective judgment and selection by a person, it is difficult to ensure positioning accuracy.